You are here

New MN STATE RECORD hopefully!!

By FishingPals4Life on Tue, 04/18/2017 - 18:29

Monday, April 17, 2017

Gar, Shortnose

Size:

31 inches 5 pounds 4.48 ounces

We started a trip way down south for white crappie and shortnose gar being the targets and if we had time on the way back we had some ultra lights for orange spots. When we got to the white crappie lake there were guys there with huge nets going across the lake catching and killing carp and roughfish, the only white crappies we seen were dead ones and almost dead ones floating on the lake from being stuck in the nets. I got my good medium weight pole snagged in some weeds and when I tried pulling it out it snapped right in half. This trip was turning bad really fast.

We packed up after a short debate to go home or go for gar (now with me using my ultra light and 5 pound mono) that didn't sound like a super good combo for a toothy gar. We headed back north closer to home where we were more familiar with the area. The water was murky and super hard to see in, but we started casting out bobbers and minnows hoping for a gar or crappie or any other minnow eaters in the area, we had several bites and hook ups, but they kept gettin off before we could see what they were, drum, bullheads, crappie maybe? The bobbers would slowly sink down like a crappie bite not like an excited slam from a bigger fish, finally I hooked up with one bigger then this one and was pretty sure it was a gar (my dad was pretty sure it was a northern) cuz we seen just a quick flash of a long body by the boat. The day was going by fast and we had a long drive to finish home yet, we talked about what if's and next times. We fished some more and missed some more then I was able to get a solid hook set with my light pole this one we got to the boat and in the net just in time as it fell off in the net, it was in fact a shortnose! Awesome another cool new lifer! We went to shore to measure, photo, and weigh her for my scrapbook and upon weighing her our scale read well over 5 pounds and very close to 6. Dad thought the record was only 4 something so told me not to let her go quite yet, so I put her in the net and back in the water so she could breathe. It took a while to find and I was about to dump her back in her home when he told me the record for MN was 4 pounds 9 ounces and 34 inches long caught in the early fall of 1984. Mine was shorter but super fat and chuck full of eggs. That's when we both got super excited and didn't know what to do. We really wanted to let her go,but if she was really a new record this was a once in a lifetime fish. We decided to keep her and after driving around all night to try and find a state certified scale on the way home we ended up having to leaver her in a plastic bag in a cooler full of ice, losing weight, until this morning when we located one at our locker plant in our home town. She tipped the certified scale at 5 pounds 4.48 ounces exactly! YEESSS!! She hadn't died for nothing after all, she is going to be mounted and will with any luck live in the record book for a very long time!! My coolest fish ever!! 8)

That's unreal man! That gar is so fat. You've been catching a ton of great fish lately, and this one is just another gem. What's next? Great job FishingPals4Life! You just got the Golden Fish Award last month for a gigantic bigmouth buffalo, and here's another one for you -

Thanks Andy! She was really fat and full of eggs I really hated to have to kill her. Next we are hoping to still find a lake for some white crappies yet, the water down in that area was very warm, almost swimming warm, I think they were done spawning or they don't act like black crappies or they were so spooked by the netters that they wouldn't bite on anything and we've been watching the rivers up here for greaters to start running! We may try and go back there again soon so my dad can get a gar we had to end a trip while they were biting good to take my big one in. We got the papers done yesterday and notarized with a picture now the wait to see what happens next, I'm so excited!

Wow, fantastic job - what a great pocket dinosaur (if you have a big pocket) and what a great demonstartion of what is actually possible when youre out there trying hard with an open mind. Why stop now, the MN white crappie record is only 3-15 !

Thank you sir, I like the golden fish avatar! We got it notarized yesterday after we drove all over getting signatures and addresses and stuff, there is really alot to it, the DNR guys were really excited and super helpful.

Thanks gang! Especially for the advice on the gar thread, (Tony & Doc) for my dad and I on where to start to look, we found the warmest water area of a little back bay and that's where they were. They were sluggish like you guys said too, the bobbers would go down so slow you'd swear you had a cold water early crappie bite not like a mid summer longnose gar bite where they would grab it and run like crazy all over the lake, these just slowly sunk down like tiny fish bites or a current snag.